Comp 080 Enabling Technology

Over on my blog I’ve written some about the idea that came up yesterday for Arm Arm revolution (we gotta have a better name than that). I think we could make something work.

Also, let’s think about ways to make Guitar Hero accessible. Or something like Guitar Hero. Perhaps we could do Drum Hero on the DDR pad with a child sitting in the middle? Maybe we pick some tunes with obvious and repetitive drum parts to start. Then your goal is to hit the pad on the beat? Maybe with with two obvious drum instruments you have to hit both at the right time. I’m thinking of something with a back beat.

I’d like a separate discussion of how we might generalize DDR to make it more accessible. Who says that the steps have to be given? Suppose the goal was to move creatively to the music? I bet some of you could have looked a lot cooler if you were making it up rather than trying to follow that rote drill. Discussion starters:

1. Suppose part of the fun is figuring out how to get the highest score?
2. Maybe the score is some simple function of timeliness and energy?
3. Maybe the score depends on how different your pad selections are?
4. Maybe simply moving to the music is the goal.
5. Using the pad is cheap and simple but we could imagine pointing a web-cam at the player. How does that change things?
6. Remember Pete’s suggestions about collaborative play (included below to remind you).

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Last class we played with DDR (and Guitar Hero but I’ll ask about that in another post). I’d like us to have a discussion of how an accessible version of DDR might work. For this discussion I want you to limit yourselves to DDR with prescribed steps. That is, just like the game we saw in class. You need to press the correct pad at just the right time.  Let’s discuss ways that could work for people who are blind.

Some ideas to get you started:

1. How about 4 speaker stereo sound with something (speech, beeps, ?) coming from the corresponding speaker?
2. How about speech instructions that are some fixed distance ahead in time?
3. How about a training mode that is (say) slowed down with steps described and a separate play mode without speech?
4. Other ideas?

What is AirMusician ? How might we use this for an ET project?

Check out the video on Tenori-On a cool music sequencer interface. A simplified version could make a really cool project idea.